Inscriptions, Design and Manufacture of the Memorial Stone Relief Unearthed at Xuzushi Anguo Shrine

Abstract

The memorial stone relief unearthed at Anguo Shrine in 1980 in Jiaxiang, Shandong Province has attracted great interest because of the inscribed 11 lines of 490 Chinese characters. Among the words, the 8 lines of 45 characters that begin with ”recruiting workers” and end with ”compose verses and carve paintings” provide general ideas of how such stone reliefs were manufactured in terms of the procedures and tools used, as well as the design of patterns. This paper discerns the context of the characters based on references to words inscribed on copper mirrors or carved on stones during the Han Dynasty. It also compares traces of the design and manufacture of the stone reliefs to other materials made about the same time in an attempt to clarify the methods applied, the devices used, and the order of steps of application. Finally, this study compares works of art found in several graves in reference to the arrangement of inscriptions and patterns and the possible relationships among them.